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The country has an area of 25,000 square miles and a population of 2.2 million. The largest religious groups and their percentages of the population include: Roman Catholic (22 percent), Lutheran (20 percent), and Orthodox Christian (16 percent). Sizeable religious minorities include Baptists, Pentecostals, and evangelical Protestant groups. The once large Jewish community was virtually destroyed in the Holocaust during the 1941-44 German occupation. In 2008, according to official sources, 10,139 persons identified themselves as ethnically Jewish.

Interest in religion increased markedly following the restoration of independence; however, many adherents do not regularly practice their faith. In 2008 religious groups provided the following estimates of membership in congregations to the Justice Ministry: Catholics (500,000), Lutherans (435,000), Orthodox Christians (370,000), Baptists (7,062), Seventh-day Adventists (3,950), Old Believer Orthodox (2,607), Mormons (494), Methodists (635), Muslims (332), Jews (586), Jehovah's Witnesses (176), Hare Krishnas (124), and Buddhists (100). Orthodox Christians, many of whom are Russian-speaking, noncitizen permanent residents, are concentrated in the major cities, while many Catholics live in the east.